THE MESSIAH JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST
--fTo- the .Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—That " Evelyn Underhill " should have written this review as printed on p. 7C8 is to me almost incredible. It would seem, indeed, as if she thought there was " something in it " ; and yet anything more destructive of an orthodox view of Christianity can scarcely be imagined. She may well say that Dr. Eisler's views will " give the orthodox reader some • disagreeable shocks.'" _I am by no means what is generally called orthodox, having been brought up on Matthew Arnold and Ecce Homo," but the conception of Christ as a "stunted humpback," a more contemptible figure than even Mr. Gandhi's as caricatured by Cumberworth, is to me positively shocking, to say the least of it ; and yet from her two last rather cryptic sentences it is difficult to discover how far she agrees or disagrees with Dr. Eisler : the last of all seems even to express approval.—I am, Sir,. &c.,: Uplyme, High Wycombe. J. B. PENNINGTON. - [Miss Evelyn Underhill writes : " I am equally distressed and astonished that anyone who read my review of Dr. Eisler's book with care could suppose that I thought there was something in ' his views. His position as a scholar entitles him to serious treatment, and in any ease mere denunciation often defeats its own end. But it seemed to me that a bald Setting out of his thesis was quite enough to demonstrate its outrageous character; and surely the last sentence of the review made my own opinion quite clear."—ED. Spectator.]
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